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Superwoman (Kristin Wells) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Everyday I wake up, and I’m thankful to be a woman in business. Why you may ask? There are many of the articles out there about women in tech indicate that there are very few female founders and female CEOs. An article by Caroline Howard mentioned the 20 women running large companies in America - or only 4% of Fortune 500 companies. That’s actually a new record, too. On a smaller scale, 16% of my incoming class at Chicago Booth was female. But I personally like those odds.

Why? Because I’m a single female? No … although that never hurt. Because there are more people I connect with in my target market at our startup - ZipFit, a men’s denim concept? No … although that never hurt either.

It’s because you stand out from the crowd. Imagine attending a pitch event. Ten white guys who are all about 30 years old stand up to talk about their company. It gets a bit repetitive, and if you’re pitching, you want to stand out from the crowd. When you talk about your company, people can easily identify you especially if you’re the only female who presented. Think of it this way. There were three male CEOs of Yahoo in the past 2 years before Marissa Mayer. Yet, what was covered? The new female CEO. She got noticed.

Sure, as a woman you have to deal with the guys who are sexist and think women should stay at home and just make babies. I’ve been told that a few times. Thankfully, there aren’t very many of them. As a woman, that does require you to have thicker skin to deal with it. It doesn’t bother me too much anymore because I quickly state my opinion and exit those conversations. There’s no point in wasting my time with someone of that mindset.

For the last two years I've been working on ZipFit Denim. There are not many women in the startup ecosystem, so I'm usually remembered as "that jeans woman" - or sometimes the woman with a big ass. It helps - because people actually remember our business.

To all the women out there who run businesses, start companies and are motivated - cheers to you. Wear a pink jacket next time and enjoy sticking out from the crowd even more.